Chapter Nine #2
Mrs. Gladstone thought for a moment and then decided that accepting help that had been offered was better than sitting in the damp, chilly coach until it could be mended.
“We are not far from our destination, my lord. My companions are to board at Low Fell Farm and I am on my way to my daughter in Dalston.”
Lord Montgomery smiled warmly. “That makes things easy. Low Fell is my Home Farm and is a mere half mile from here. Dalston is only a few miles farther. A light pony cart will be here for you within half an hour, forty minutes at most.” He gently kicked the side of his mare and she eagerly headed for the warm stable and fresh hay that were waiting for her at home.
*
In the carriage, Gwendolyn let go of the breath she had been holding. Surely the fates could not be so cruel as to send her to Lord Roland Montgomery’s estate. She dropped the carriage curtain she had lifted when she had recognized his voice earlier and stared in front of her.
Mariana closed her mouth with a snap. She slipped her arm around Gwendolyn’s shoulder. “We probably won’t see him. I doubt he socializes with the Ewbanks.”
Gwendolyn nodded dully. No matter how far she traveled, she would never be able to escape her past.
An hour later, the promised pony cart drew up at the front door of Low Fell Farm.
The grey clouds parted and golden afternoon sunlight filled the garden.
The low buzz of bees working industriously among the lavender, roses, and clematis created a harmonious ambiance.
Gwendolyn breathed in the sweet fragrance of summer and buoyed her heart with the hope that here she could find peace and healing. Even if Roland Montgomery lived nearby.
The door stood wide open and before the cart had stopped completely, a horde of children tumbled through the doorway, all shouting and laughing.
For a moment Gwendolyn wondered whether the Ewbanks ran a school, but a clear command to “Nay, enough o’ that clatter—tak’ it out t’ field if ye must scream like crows!
” rang out, and the rabble subsided to a gang of six boys and girls ranging in age from about twelve or thirteen down to about four.
They continued to push and shove each other, giggling and peering at the strangers in the cart.
The large farmer walked forward, a smile on his ruddy face. “Welcome, welcome to Low Fell Farm.”
The girls, grubby and grimy from their journey and longing for a wash and a good meal, clambered out of the cart. Gwendolyn greeted the farmer with her prettiest smile and he succumbed to her charms as most men did, almost falling over his feet to usher her inside.
Mariana shook her head in resignation, picked up the traveling cases they had brought, said goodbye to Mrs. Gladstone and followed them into the farmhouse.
The front door led directly into a large living room with low ceilings held up by heavy wooden beams. Bow windows with leaded panes of thick glass were framed by dark green curtains. A large couch dominated the space and a number of armchairs crowded hospitably near it.
A door near the back of the front room opened to a small passageway that led past a pantry before coming out into a large, cheerful kitchen.
A wiry woman without an ounce of extra fat on her turned from the heavy black pot she was stirring on the stove.
She nodded curtly. “G’day to you, misses.
Dinner is just about ready. Gracie will show you where you can wash your hands and faces, and then we can sit down. ”
Gwendolyn stared at the long wooden table covered in a white cloth on which knives, forks, spoons, and plates had been set out.
She had never even been in a kitchen before, let alone eaten in one.
She was about to ask about the dining room when Mariana nudged her and said, “Come along, I really could do with a wash, and that stew smells delicious.”
Gwendolyn nodded. This was her life now.
She was no longer the daughter of a baron and there were no servants to wait on her.
She was going to have to learn to fend for herself.
Her hand unconsciously moved to her stomach.
And there was another life she was responsible for now.
With her head held high and determination to make a success of her life, she followed Gracie down a low-ceilinged corridor.
A few minutes later, having washed in the scullery just off the kitchen, they returned.
The children were all seated around the table on which a delicious-looking loaf of freshly baked bread, a large piece of ham, a slab of cheese, and a bowl of apples now resided.
Mrs. Gladstone placed a bowl of steaming beef stew with a rich gravy in which carrots were jostling with turnips and potatoes on a wooden board next to some mashed potatoes and a bowl of Brussels sprouts.
Gwendolyn and Mariana hovered near the table, not sure where to sit, especially when three men and two women came in from outside and took their places at the farthest end of the table as if they belonged there.
The men briefly greeted Mrs. Ewbanks and began talking about when the hay could be harvested.
Jim, the oldest of the Ewbanks boys, joined the conversation eagerly.
The women helped Mrs. Ewbanks set out the dishes on the table and then sat down, serving themselves to generous servings of stew and potatoes before passing the bowls around to the men while they chatted about milk yield and how long it took to churn the butter that day.
Gwendolyn slipped her hand into Mariana’s, bewildered by this foreign world with no connection to the sophisticated salons of London. Neither of them knew quite how to behave.
Mrs. Ewbanks beckoned to them as she took her own seat. “Take your places, lasses. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”
*
Gwendolyn sighed and looked out across the bleak moors that surrounded Low Fell Farm.
The sky was heavy and grey with clouds, as it had been almost every day since their arrival, and the fields from which crops had been harvested were bleak and brown.
The clear, fluting trill of a curlew echoed across the fells that gave the house its name, drawn out and hollow like the cry of a lost soul seeking a place to rest. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. She had never known any place as desolate as this.
A clang of metal sounded through the open door behind her, drawing her attention to the large, homely kitchen.
Mrs. Ewbanks was kneading bread that would soon be baked in the steadily burning peat fire in the wide stone hearth.
Eleven-year-old Gracie and eight-year-old Peggy were peeling potatoes at a counter just inside the door.
Mariana was spreading a large white tablecloth over the sturdy wooden table, a pile of plates and cutlery ready on a tray nearby.
Gwendolyn twisted her hands. She felt superfluous, spurious, and incompetent.
She had never done even the simplest of household chores and her first attempt at bringing eggs in from the hen house had ended in disaster when she tripped over the step and dropped the basket.
Mrs. Ewbanks had not disguised her contempt at a big lug of a girl who couldn’t carry out a simple task her youngest, four-year-old Maisie, did every day.
But Farmer Ewbanks had sat back, his large body overflowing the sides of his chair and spoken laconically.
“Now, now, Missus, don’t carry on so. Accidents happen and these city folk haven’t had the advantages our young ’uns have.
They’ve not been brought up to much and t’will take time before they know how to do things proper.
” He’d been charmed by Gwendolyn from the moment she and Mariana had arrived, weary and grubby from their long journey north, and was quick to defend her.
Mrs. Ewbanks had been less enamored of Gwendolyn, her thin face showing little emotion as she bustled them inside and showed them the room they were to share.
Gwendolyn’s initial wariness of Mrs. Ewbanks hadn’t mellowed in the few days since then and she kept her distance from the farmer’s wife, whose kindness was brisk and efficient rather than sentimental.
The delicious aromas of dinner stimulated Gwendolyn’s appetite which had returned with a vengeance in the last few days.
She placed her hand on her growing waistline that was now becoming visible even to a casual observer, silently regretting how difficult her situation made it for her to be seen in public, even in this remote area.
The conservative farmers and farm laborers were more unforgiving of moral failure than the members of the ton.
They turned a grudging blind eye to the unfortunate girls looked after by the Ewbanks but preferred them not to attend the occasional social gatherings in the nearby villages and tut-tutted if such girls showed their faces in church on Sundays.
A slight flutter under Gwendolyn’s hand made her stiffen and then smile.
For the last few days, she had been aware of the baby’s movements in her womb.
It was strange and awe-inspiring. At odd moments, she found herself talking to the baby she was carrying.
A fierce possessiveness and protectiveness towards this unknown person was developing in her heart, although she suspected she would not be allowed to keep the child as her own.
Society did not look kindly on unmarried mothers.
And illegitimate children were spurned and ostracized, treated as evil offspring of a wicked mother.
She did not want her child to begin life with a stigma.